leafed in Blooger Friend School

Wow! Can you believe it, another year is here and we are very excited in this house! I must admit that it hasn't always been that way. We started out homeschooling journey in 1999 with our oldest daughter. I had such big plans and dreams. We had heard about homeschooling through our pastor who was teaching their children. We were actually taught that if we didn't homeschool we were feeding our children to the wolves so to speack and they would become horrible little children and we would regreat it. I did want to homeschool, but you might say we started out of fear.

The first couple of years were good, but by the time my oldest was in third grade, I had one in one and one in primary (who we later learned had learning problems). It went downhill fast and stayed there all year. At the time I was schooling three from morning to night and still not reaching goals. I had two babies, supper was never on time and my house was a constant mess. I felt out of control all of the time. We really didn'y understand. My hubby told me that enough was enough and we had to do someting. after much prayer we put our three oldest girls in public school. We did have a good experince for the most part. I volunteered in the classrooma and learned alot and we got some help for our middle daughter. We later got more help on our own for her. With our home back in control and knowing that we didn't want them to stay in public school we started to bring them home agan.

The first to come home was our oldest at the end of grade six. After bring her home we discovered that she was lacking in some areas and took a year to bring up to where we wanted her. We had a great year with just her and me and our relationship blossomed. The next year we had brought home two more, our middle daughter (he school experince was turning bad) and the fourth (because we already had work for her grade level. It was another good year. this year we now have everyone back home and it is working great. I have learned to be more disciplined and keep things running smooth. I know a year will never be perfect, we are always learning ourseleves. But our family has found what works for us and we are all content.

Our goals are very simple. We want to train our girls to godly young woman and place a desire in their heart to love the Lord and want to do His will for their lives. Homeschooling helps with this, but this is a whole life thing. Our lives must provide the example for them and show them the joy in serving the Lord. I will not push my children onto further education, nor will I hold them back from it. Some of my girls want nothing more then to run a house and be a good wife and mother, what a blessing to my heart. I do question them though, not that I don't want that for them but what if you don't marry until you are thirty? What if God has planned for you to remain single? What will you then do with your life? My desire is for them to use their minds and reach conclusions for themselves. they could become a nurse and help a missionary husband, hey could do nothing but get a basic education and become a wonderful house wife at 22. All I deisire for them is God's will and direction. My job as a mother is to make their hear ttender toward God so that they might hear His still small voice and want to obey, what ever that is.

I have now babbled on way to much and if you are still reading I am sure you are getting tired! I'll post a few picks of our first day and pray that God will bless you in your lives as you serve Him!

This is our new schedule

This is our first homeschool morning breakfast.

Bible time before schoolwork.

School work starts!